Chapter 26 - Blessed be the Barrier!
…
"Close your eyes!" Yamcha yelled at Bulma as the asteroids came toward them. He put his arm around her and created a ten-layered spherical barrier around their bodies.
Boom! Boom! Boom!...
Like drums, the asteroids kept repeatedly slamming against his shield, so much so that he was worried they would break this one too.
"N -No, we're gonna die in space," Bulma started crying.
"You really underestimate my powers, woman," he said casually. Yamcha felt nervous, but he hid it. Endless darkness and nothingness surrounded him in the middle of nowhere space. But despite that, he tried keeping a cool head and got an idea. He used solid swimming on his shield, something he hadn't tried before.
'Yes!' He explained triumphantly in his heart when he saw his arm go through the shield. His arm scorched and burned as he kept shooting planet-destroying Ki Blasts at the asteroids.
The asteroids were being eliminated one by one, and he would take a Senzu Bean when his Ki dropped below half. Also, his arm was burning in space, so his HP was dropping too.
The Ki Waves he shot also acted as propulsion and pushed them away from the center of the asteroid shower.
They had to fly with the asteroid shown in space as Yamcha kept shooting more beams at the incoming asteroids and exploded the space rocks, which pushed their bodies even more in front of the asteroid field.
"Yamcha! Behind us! A planet!" Bulma noticed, but he didn't have the leisure to turn around.
"Okay," he nodded to show his confirmation. Yamcha hoped in his heart he wasn't having a hallucination or they would both end up dead.
"Though it seems like this was the plant remnants of the enemy ship that crashed. Do you think it's a good idea to go there?" Bulma seemed off-put to go there.
Yamcha had a different view of things. "If not there, then where would we even go?"
Bulma remembered her reality, and what situation they were in, and her eyes shook.
The planet they were landing on looked a reddish brown color. Even from up here, Yamcha could see a planet made of bronze-colored rocks.
…
It took a little more than an hour for them to crash land on the planet together with the meteor shower. Which caused many explosions around them, and if it wasn't for the Barrier Magic, Bulma would have died.
Yamcha wanted to kiss his past self for learning Magic from Baba.
But he quickly got to the matter at hand, enemy elimination, before they fester. "We should look around for any leftover Frieza forces."
After saying that, he cast a spell on Bulma that formed a translucent barrier around her while he walked around and breathed in the planet's polluted air.
With a thought, he controlled the barrier around Bulma, and they both flew side by side as the meteors stopped plunging. When they arrived at Frieza Force's spacecraft, what greeted them was just a huge wreckage with corpses, nothing more than smudges lying around.
Yamcha carefully analyzed the surroundings to check for anyone alive and used Ki Sense.
No one was around. They had all died. That was anticlimactic, Yamcha thought. But this was how things were most of the time. No enemy would miraculously survive this onslaught of meteors unless they were much stronger than him. Yamcha had the Magic Barriers to close that gap a little, and it was good for defense, but others at his level don't have the advantage of Barrier Magic.
"Seems like we crashed on a tiny planet with no life," Bulma took out her small phone. Though it looked a little clunky, it had the power of a strong computer. "Okay, maybe not a planet. It might be just a big space rock. The spaceship parts from the other guys are foreign, and most core components were destroyed."
"Aren't all planets just big space rocks? Also, you have all of Kami's ship database. Does this space rock have a name?"
"No," Bulma huffed and got in her teacher mode. "Also, all planets must do three things to be considered a planet: It must orbit a star. It must be big enough to have enough gravity to force it into a spherical shape. It must be big enough…"
Yamcha didn't care. He just wanted to keep Bulma's mind off their despairing situation. A foreign planet with seemingly no life or water, in the middle of nowhere, and their ship was destroyed.
Suddenly, Yamcha stopped as he remembered something and turned toward Bulma with a smug look on his face. "Remember when I mentioned having spare spaceship parts to build a new spaceship, and you ridiculed me? Saying something like, I quote: You're stupid. I'm Bulma, the most intelligent woman on earth, muahahaha!"
"That's not what happened exactly."
"Anyways," Yamcha waved her off as the smile on his face grew wider. "I don't want to be the guy who says: I told you so… but-"
"That would take like a bucket of capsules to carry. They were probably in our ship and crashed," Bulma reasoned. "Capsules aren't the most durable objects around."
She looked down, and her mood fell. Bulma didn't know about the inventory, so her assumption was logical. Logical didn't make it true, though.
Yamcha put his hands under his shirt to access his inventory and pulled out dozens and dozens of capsules.
When she saw him taking out capsules, Bulma's eyes widened like saucers. "You always kept them there? But I didn't feel anything when we were so close as asteroids crashed on us!"
Yamcha sighed in mock disappointment and shook his head. "Bulma, dear, what did I say about questioning things?"
"To not do it?" She tilted her head in genuine confusion.
"Exactly," Yamcha nodded. "Like how I am a reincarnated individual where this universe is just fiction. So I know the future."
"Wow, at least come up with something more believable as a backstory," Bulma played along as, despite all Yamcha's teasing, she still had a smile on her face.
Hope, when on the brink of despair, was the best mood fixer out there. Even Yamcha's teasing couldn't wipe away her smile.
Seeing that his comments had no effect, he decided to get serious. "How long will it take you to build another spaceship?"
"About two months," Bulma answered.
"Damn, that's slow." This time, he didn't even mean it as an insult, and Bulma understood that.
"Well, I don't have the tools I did in my dad's lab." She seemed to think about something, and her face paled. "Wait, there's no water or life on this planet! How will we survive in-"
She stopped when she saw Yamcha's face. If the smile could get any wider, it would rip his face in half. "Remember who rolled her eyes when I asked about the food situation?"
"Oh God, here we go," she sighed.
"If you call me Kami Emperor Yamcha, I might share my food with you."
"You would really let your girlfriend starve over this?"
Yamcha shakes his finger. "Tut, tut, dear. The question is: are you willing to let yourself starve? Are some words so heavy that you would rather die of starvation?"
She frowned and didn't look pleased with him. But Yamcha didn't mind. If someone tried pleasing everyone, he would die as the most liked, unhappiest man.
Still, he took out a dozen more capsules from
Bulma stopped worrying about things she had no control over and instead concentrated on what she should do.
While she was building the spaceship, Yamcha went around looking for big rocks so he could build a shelter for the both of them. Bulma was the one who needed to sleep, but with her doing all this work… he suddenly remembered that he had a capsule for a house.
'I knew being paranoid about this would one day pay off.'
Spending the first day on an uninhabited planet was easier than Bulma had thought it would be. When she came to look for Yamcha, she saw… a medieval castle? And Yamcha waved at her from atop one tower.
Just how many capsules did Yamcha have? She wondered. But she didn't ask him such a question. Bulma would never admit it outwardly, but she knew Yamcha's cautiousness had saved them both. If it hadn't been for the capsules, they would have had a 0% chance of getting out of here. They would've only waited for their slow death by then.
Yamcha's playful and teasing words also kept her mind away from the despair of their reality. She wondered how he could always keep such a happy nature even in these dire circumstances. After all, even having the parts she needed didn't mean she could magically build a spaceship on a random planet.
She only had one chance to try because if it exploded mid-air, then they were done. Whether or not the explosion would kill them wouldn't matter at that point.
'From today onward, I promise to be prepared. I was frivolous enough to think Yamcha was just over-preparing for nothing.' Bulma considered.
As he jumped from the castle walls and into the pool, Yamcha called out. "Hey, Bulma!"
At least one of them was having the time of his life.
She smiled at the sight and shook her head. Ironically, she would cry in a corner right now if it weren't for his teasing.
…
Two weeks passed, and they were ahead of schedule as Yamcha helped her do the heavy lifting.
As they were working another day, something in the sky shined, and Bulma noticed it was something that looked like Goku's pod.
"An attack pod!" Yamcha explained, a bead of sweat rolling down his face.
Attack pod, Bulma couldn't help but think that the name quite suited the miniature spaceship.
Boom!
An explosion rang out in the distance, where the attack pod had landed. The shockwave from the landing shook the ground all the way to where he and Bulma were building the spaceship.
Yamcha was on full alert.
How did the Frieza Force find them? Who was the guy that came? Were they strong? Thoughts like that passed through his head. If he said he wasn't nervous, he would be lying. It would also be a lie if he said he wasn't a little excited, as Yamcha hadn't had the chance to test his new power.
"Be careful and hide somewhere. If a blast comes this way, protect yourself first, and don't worry about the spaceship too much," he cast the barrier spell on Bulma and immediately flew off to meet the alien.
Yamcha didn't want, whoever it was, to destroy the spaceship he and Bulma had been working on for the last couple of weeks. So he couldn't let the enemy get close.
As he charged toward the attack pod, someone was charging toward Yamcha too, and they met in the middle.
Baam!
They clashed fists, and Yamcha grew startled by who his opponent was. 'Goku?!'
Such thoughts went away as quickly as they came. The opponent wasn't Goku. This man was darker skinned and someone else—a Saiyan from the DBZ Movies, Turles from the Tree of Might.
Yamcha clenched his teeth. 'If this is Turles at the time when he might have eaten some fruits from the Tree of Might, then I stand no chance.'
"He," Turles chuckled, as if smelling his opponent's apprehension. "Seems like I caught quite the prey this time. You could be a high-class warrior if you join Cooler, just like me."
Yamcha didn't bother talking in the middle of the fight. He used Observe on the Saiyan and got a better read at this.
'He says he is a High-Class warrior, but with Observe, I can see that he is just a middle-class warrior. This is a younger Turles, likely before he even left the Frieza Force.'
Yamcha was curious if this was maybe just Turles trying to act intimidating. But none of that mattered as Yamcha stopped hiding his power level.
Turles' scouter flashed and made a beeping sound. "E -Elite Class-"
He didn't finish as Yamcha punched him in the face, feeling Turles' nose breaking under his knuckles. The Saiyans flew away like a rag doll. Smashing him into a faraway mountain, shattering the stone he landed on as if made of brittle ice.
His attack pod had created a crater below that same mountain. Yamcha narrowed his eyes.
'Should I approach and try to get the attack pod? I could put it in the inventory in less than a second.' Yamcha's greed bristled in his mind. 'No, making such a dangerous move at a high-level stage wouldn't be smart.'
"Fuck, that was one hell of a punch. Felt like my head was going to pop off," Turles got out of the rocks and cracked his neck. Blood flowed out of his nose and mouth.
The lower part of Turles' face was bloodied up, and pieces of his scouter also fell to the ground, broken.
"I'm here to ask you some questions. If you do, then I wouldn't mind letting you go. I promise you," that was a lie. Yamcha would kill the Saiyan as soon as he got what he wanted from him.
"Go to hell!" A small shining white ball appeared in Turles' hand, the smile on his face widening. Without hesitation, he threw it at the sky. "Burst open and mix!"
Yamcha's eyes widened, but it was too late. As before he could react, Turles turned into a big ape and slapped him right into a rocky peak. The stone mountain exploded in one hit and destroyed everything in the vicinity.
"Damn, that was fast for its size," every part of Yamcha's body hurt, and he had broken at least a dozen bones. Blood pooled around him, as his head was bleeding, and his vision had turned blurry.
Yamcha pushed the boulders that were crushing him away, and he used Observe on Turles, reading his new Power Level.
[Turles - Lvl 221] (PL: 60,000)
His high level was likely due to him killing whole civilizations and destroying planets in his wake.
"Fuck, he destroyed his own attack pod," Yamcha shook his head in annoyance. He wanted the pod to see if it could help them build their spaceship faster. But that was all over now.
Turles opened his mouth, and a Ki Blast gathered between his fangs. The surrounding wind rippled in cyclones as the weather around the small planet seemed to change.
Yamcha didn't stay still and immediately activated his active Skills. From Ki Enhancement to the evolved form of Pump Up, Superhuman Body Control.
His arms bulked up like a grossly disproportionate cartoon character. They felt like they would explode out of his skin. Since the rest of his body was normal-sized, it did not affect his speed much.
"Wanna have a Ki Blast battle?" Pointing his hands toward, with his wrists touching, all of Yamcha's Ki gathered at one point the size of a rice ball, exercising extreme Ki Control.
'I need to end this battle fast before he gets planet-blowing ideas.' Yamcha thought, putting every ounce of power he could in his blast.
Both shot their Ki Blasts simultaneously and met in the middle, causing a huge enough explosion to tilt the small planet.
Yamcha was worried for a second that the planet might explode. But it seemed like Turles hadn't lost his sense of self during his transformation into an ape and knew that if he did something reckless, he couldn't survive in space either.
In the first half of the second, Turles' beam obliterated the land around him as it traveled, while Yamcha's was quiet, small, thin, like a strand of hair.
It didn't take a second for their clash to end as Yamcha's beam pierced through Turles' attack. Cutting through like a scalpel, and on the other end, as it smashes into Turles, Yamcha explodes his beam. Creating a large burst of energy that obliterated everything in its path.
BOOOOOOOOM!
The explosion was so large that it looked like a miniature sun had crashed in front of Yamcha. The heat felt like it was going to melt his face, but it didn't.
He had put everything into that attack and didn't have enough Ki to protect his body from any incoming attack. But unlike most in this situation, Yamcha wasn't worried about his Ki amount as he had Senzu Beans with him.
Once the dust cleared, a giant ape was on the ground, with everything below its ribs missing. Slowly, the ape transformation was undone, as Turles' tail was destroyed in the blast radius.
In place of the giant ape stood a bloody Turles with half his body missing.
Though a power level of 60,000 was nothing to scoff at. With his buffs, Yamcha's power level had jumped from 20,000 to a little over 70,000. He also had better Ki Control.
Yamcha flew down, and Turles was half-dead by this point. Not even a Senzu Bean could save him now. Not like Yamcha would bother either way.
Crouching, Yamcha noticed that Turles' mind was likely very hazy. But with his Saiyam psychology, he could continue living a couple more minutes even with his lower body missing.
"Maybe I could use this," Yamcha muttered under his breath, and after turning Turles' head to look at him, he did some strange hand movements. It resembled Roshi's hypnosis. "How did you find us?"
At first, Turles said nothing, and Yamcha felt slightly disappointed. But after a dozen seconds, the Saiyan spoke. "I… I was sent under the order of Lord Cooler… to work with Frieza on finding and eliminating… unknown combatants."
'If Turles is here, do Vegeta's brother and other Saiyans exist too? Broly…' Yamcha thought. "What about the other Saiyans? How many are they, and who do they work for?"
"There are eight Saiyans… me included. Everyone else works… under Prince Vegeta, and the Prince works under Lord Frieza." Turles answered in a monotone voice, his eyes hollow and without pupils as hypnosis had fully taken over.
Eight Saiyans? That was a lot. Many more than canon, and Yamcha doubted his actions on earth somehow changed the past. But by the time DBZ came around, only Vegeta, Nappa, and Raditz were the last Saiyans… with Goku too.
By the time canon came around, these Saiyans had likely been killed in missions. That was the only logical explanation. Also, it made sense since the Saiyan Prince wouldn't be accompanied by just Nappa when out of their planet.
"Thanks for the answers. I will end your pain now," Yamcha pointed his hand at Turles' head and shot a Ki blast, destroying the Saiyan's brain.
[You have killed: (Turles - Lvl 221)]
[You have gained a Level]
[You have gained a Level]
[You have gained a Level]
[You have gained a Level]
[You have gained a Level]
.
.
.
He leveled up all the way to level 90 and gained 30 levels in one fellow swoop.
Killing tyrants and planet destroyers seemed to give a lot of Exp, Yamcha realized. A greedy look appeared in his eyes. "Seems like it's time I become the hero the world needs and give it some freedom from these tyrants."
A/N: In the 'DBS: Broly' we see Vegeta has some Saiyans with him when he's notified of his planet's destruction. So this is actually based on canon. I didn't make it up. Since they weren't around by the time Vegeta went to Earth, it's safe to assume they died.
